Olympus SZ-12 / SZ-14 : 25-300mm !

What I like about it :
– 24x zoom lens that makes you forget you ever wanted to buy a bridge.
– its 25-600mm optical range, perfect for landscapes in wide-angle and still VERY powerful at telephoto.
– New Multi-Motion image stabilization mode which seems promising in video mode. For stills, the SZ-12 / SZ-14 has a CCD-shift image stabilization.
– beauty mode
– Eye-Fi cards support even though I’d prefer a Wi-Fi enabled camera like the Samsung line (WB850F, WB150F, DV300F)
– The battery can be charged through the USB and that is a must-have feature if you travel a lot and often with your laptop.

What I thing Olympus has missed on the SZ-14 :
– no BSI CMOS sensor…. Olympus range of digital compact cameras only has a couple of references with this technology (see the SH-21, a 24-300mm compact camera with 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor). Personally, I won’t buy anything else but a backside illuminated sensor based camera…. I regret the SZ-14 has such a huge lens but such a basic sensor : 14 megapixels CCD with 720p….
– Perfect for travelers, the SZ-12 / SZ-14 does not have any GPS sensor like the Fujifilm Finepix F770EXR for example. I love using GPS on cameras for travel and vacation, when I import them in Aperture, I can browse buy country, city, POI, etc. Today, even Lightroom 4 will bring this feature, so…
– Not so compact…